


Vash’s Theory of Perpetual Motion

by Lilithisbitter



Category: Trigun
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor, Internet science is not real science, do not try this at home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-19
Updated: 2012-04-19
Packaged: 2017-11-03 22:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/386782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilithisbitter/pseuds/Lilithisbitter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an old joke on the internet that goes: "Toast lands butter-side down.  Cats land on all four feet.  So what happens if you drop a cat with a piece of buttered toast tied to its back?"  Clearly in real life, kitty runs for safety, buttered toast crumbling with every precious leap and bound.  But in the ideal conditions (ie You Wish Land) the cat-toast array hovers inches before the ground, constantly spinning as kitty and toast dual for supremacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vash’s Theory of Perpetual Motion

Scrape, scrape.

The knife sliced the butter just so.

Butter on knife.

Butter on bread so the surface of the bread was evenly covered.

Knives was a stickler for perfection. Everything had to be perfect in every way. At the tender age of seven months and four days he sat at the table buttering a slice of toast. Meanwhile, his younger by two minutes twin sat trying to stuff as many doughnuts as possible into his mouth. All was well in the world. He dipped the knife in the jelly now and was just about to spread it when…

…one of the ships many black cats jumped on Knives' lap and immediately snuck in its claws. That was the cause. The effect was the Plant child yowling in pain, shooting straight up at least two feet in the air. The toast and cat went flying off into separate directions. The cat landed on all fours, bouncing for a short distance before coming to a stop.

The toast…

…landed…

…flat…

…on the floor with a soft splat.

They all watched the toast before Rem turned back to Knives, "You know you can have more pieces of toast." She gestured to the rest of the pieces of toast, which were all slightly burnt to some degree. Knives had gotten the only unburnt slice.

"Can't." He said stubbornly and folded his arms across his chest.

If the other members of Project Seeds Omega Shift had been the dining room, they would have had a nice laugh at the picky little philosopher who obviously suffering from some form of Obsessive Compulsive disorder.

Meanwhile, the computer chips in Vash's head started processing the information. Well, he was a plant after all. You couldn't say gears in Vash's head, because he was a lot smarter than that. Cat and buttered toast rang in his mind until he came across the question that had haunted mankind for a very long time.

"You want to what?" Knives asked as Vash showed him the work he had down over the past few hours. Vash was rather proud of the calculations he had on three whiteboards with his nice set of dry erase markers.

"Drop a cat with a slice of buttered toast tied to its back." Vash said as if it was the most natural thing in the universe.

"Vash," His brother said, "You know that you are the only one of us who thinks in mathematical terms. Why in the world would you want to drop a buttered toast cat in the first place?"

Vash didn't even hesitate. "Perpetual motion machine," he said cheerfully, "I believe if you drop a cat with a slice of buttered toast tied on its back, it should hover in midair indefinitely."

Knives thought about this. Toast lands butter side down; it had always been a fact of life. Cats on the other hand landed on all fours. Damn cat, ruining his perfect slice of buttered toast. On one hand, if Vash's Hypothesis worked, then they would have a power source to supplement the Plants. On the other hand, if it didn't work… Well, he could always use Cat #666, that very same cat that ruined his slice of buttered toast. His most perfect slice of buttered toast and the cat ruined it. His ten minutes of buttering it so. But he wasn't one to carry a grudge. But, oh, his toast. He might never butter a perfect slice of toast ever again.

Cat #666…

…here, kitty, kitty…

…Knives is going to drop you to your doom.

He smiled an evil smile, "I'll help you with your project."

Vash simpered happily and started to blubber, "Oh Knives, I'm so happy. We'll get a prize for it. I'll get the Cat, you get the buttered toast."

Knives smiled a sickeningly sweet smile. It was so sweet that diabetics across the United States fell into a coma from the sheer syrupiness of the last sentence. "But dear brother, let me the cat and you get the toast."

Vash thought about it… for three seconds. "Sure." He said, naive to the fate of Cat #666 if Knives got his way.

666 didn't like being handled by Knives. Maybe it could smell the evil beneath the surface. Or that odd madness that lurked beneath as well.

Or maybe it was the fact that Knives had that cat by the tail and swinging the thing around in a mass of black fur and sharp claws. The cat made an interesting sound like a fire engine. And the cat had ruined his buttered toast. 

He met up with Vash in the Rec Room on top of a stack of wooden boxes. The little blonde blinked at the sight of Knives and his cat swinging. "Are you supposed to do that?" He asked. After all, if Knives was hurting the cat, then he was going against Rem's philosophy of love and peace.

"Nah, he likes it." Knives said cheerfully. "Now help me tie this buttered toast to its back."

Five minutes later, a cat with buttered toast ran out of the room, past a surprised Rem Saverem. Peeking inside she saw…

Blood and carnage everywhere. Pretty much Armageddon…

Just kidding.

Stop rolling your eyes.

She found two very distraught and scratched twins crying their eyes out.

"I didn't get to test my theory!" Vash wailed.

While at the same time, Knives wailed just as hard, "I didn't get my revenge!"

Rem sighed over the silliness of her adopted children and went to find the ointment.

One Hundred and thirty-two years later, Knives sat back in a lawn chair out in the sandy front yard looking up at his brother who was petting a black cat that had an odd habit of popping up everywhere, with a slice of buttered toast tied to his back. The cat's back, not Vash's back. "This better have a point." He grumbled, "That was going to be my breakfast."

"Oh, it does." Vash said holding the cat out in front of him, getting ready to release the feline and test the theory he had worked out over a hundred years or so. But the cat was a cute thing with soft black fur and huge green eyes. He couldn't be cruel to poor defenseless…

"Drop the cat already!" Knives screamed. "I swear that if I wasn't still injured here, I'd come up there and kick your ass. And then I'd eat that cat in a nice stir fry." He hated cats as much as he hated spiders. Come to think of it, butterflies and cats was a better analogy. Yes, it was…

It was in the middle of Knives' train of thought that Vash dropped the cat off the roof.

It fell…

…and fell…

…before stopping mere inches off the ground, rotating slowly, an impossible vision of yowling cat and perfectly buttered toast.

"See, see, see!" Vash pointed at the buttered toast/cat array. "It works! It works!"

It was than he slipped off the roof and knocked himself out.

Slowly but surely, the hovering cat floated over to Knives, as it moved head over tail. The light from the two suns glinted off a tag that read…

…wait for it…

…wait for it…

…wait for it…

…Cat #666, aka Kuroneko-sama.

And Knives did smile an evil smile. He was going to get his revenge against the cat that dared ruin his butter toast. Slowly smiling he reached his hand out toward one of the things he hated most in the world. Spiders and cats…

But Kuroneko-sama chomped down on the Plant's wrist.

The world went on, for all people on the planet Gunsmoke. You'd think would it would blown up or something. How very disappointing. But somewhere, a Plant was sobbing. You'd better go away now ladies and gents. Knives crying is not the best sight in the world.

The End.


End file.
